Part one of a two-part series of tree paintings. Today we feature female painters and then on Monday it’s the men. The aim is to show comparative renderings of these spectacular plants by some of the most renowned female artists ever. Although we have numbered them, this is not a rank, just a way to keep order. We have tried to choose artworks where trees are the main subject. Finding twenty by women was as hard as reducing to twenty those by men, of which there are seemingly hundreds available to view online. It’s just not right. Today we put the women first on Plant Curator. Please let us know of others and your favourites.
1. Natalia Goncharova – Forest (Red-Green), 1913
2. Elaine de Kooning – Untitled (Calcoon Woods), c.1964
3. Séraphine de Senlis – L’arbre de Paradis (Tree of Paradise) c.1930
4. Georgia O’Keeffe – The Lawrence Tree, 1929
5. Berthe Morisot – Refuge in Normandy, 1865
6. Gertrude Abercrombie – Tree at Aledo, 1938
7. Laura Knight – Richmond Park, 1938
8. Sarah Louisa Kilpack – Beech Trees, Foulon Cemetery, Guernsey, 1867
9. Wilhelmina Barns-Graham – Balmungo Garden – Deodar Tree, c.1981
10. Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson – An Oak Tree, Green Hedges, East Grinstead, Sussex c.1981
11. Susan Wilson – Balleroy, c.2014
12. Marianne North – Castor and Pollux in the Calaveras Grove of Big Trees, California, 1875
13. Gillian Carnegie – Black Square, 2008
14. Joan Mitchell – Trees III, 1992
15. Joan González – Four Trees, c.1905
16. Louise Bourgeois – The Ainu Tree, 1999
17. Annie Harmon – Oak, Menlo Park, ca. 1900-1914
18. Emily Carr – Red Cedar c.1932
19. Grace Cossington Smith – Trees, 1927
20. Paula Modersohn-Becker – Birch trunks in front of red farmstead, c.1901
Plant Curator, thanks for introducing this amazing breadth of creativity, breath-taking and spell-binding! Dr M
Emily Carr Red Ceder
HER PAINTING TO ME REFLECTS THE POWER OF ONENESS OR WHAT CHINESE CALL LI ENHANCE THE FOCUS OF THE INDIVIDUAL . RED CEDER’S ALIGNMENT MAGNIFYING IT’S SINGULAR BEAUTY AND POWER.
Lovely collection! There is something special for me in “Four Trees”. Fantastic lines! I have had a love affair with trees since childhood. They are part of my soul. My paintings and drawings all have trees (or tree-like images) in them. I find it interesting that you had a hard time finding works by women with this theme.
I’ve been a tree painting for most of my career. I enjoyed this.